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TP-Link is collaborating with The Learners Trust, an educational support and development community of 18 schools in South Yorkshire, and Derbyshire. The Learners Trust selected TP-Link’s cloud-based Omada Access Points (AP) to be the foundation of their high-speed wireless connectivity. Students and Teachers will benefit from seamless, high-speed high-density wireless coverage. The IT Support Team chose Omada for its performance, scalability and cloud-based remote management tools.
Two schools in The Learners Trust were struggling with a legacy wireless infrastructure only capable of operating on the 2.4GHz frequency, resulting in slow and patchy Wi-Fi coverage that was no longer fit for purpose. “The wireless systems in both schools were extremely outdated, making it difficult to access and manage the networks throughout the week, due to the 2.4GHz range. As we operated on a number of iPads, the Learners Trust needed a network system which could easily handle over 40 devices per access point, and this is where TP-Link stepped in,” commented Tom Sheffield, Head of IT Support at The Learners Trust.
Following a TP-Link predictive network site survey to map wireless coverage across the site, The Learners Trust received a comprehensive list of hardware required to provide seamless, site-wide high-speed Wi-Fi. The TP-Link network engineers also included a heatmap showing where to position the access points for optimum performance at each site. The installation of 2 x OC200 Omada Controllers and 36 x EAP620 HD, AX1800 Wireless Dual Band Ceiling Mount Access Points provided seamless, high-speed and secure wireless coverage across the schools, plus enabled the IT Support Team to remotely manage the two sites. Using the cloud-based Omada interface, the team can monitor the network in real-time, receive alerts and optimise network performance without leaving their office.
Tom Sheffield explains: “Our account manager at XMA made a great business case for testing TP-Link products. The performance, support from the brand and the price point make the Omada platform extremely attractive, added to which there are no ongoing licence fees like some other brands. During our testing, the dramatic improvement in Wi-Fi speeds and reliability were obvious. Remote management was an essential feature in the decision making process too. The Omada controller allows us to monitor the Omada network in real-time. We can optimise the network based on real-world usage and even reboot access points from the Omada app, a massive time saving feature when you have sites across several counties.”
“Like a business, schools rely on seamless and secure networks to deliver a service, which makes networking the foundation of modern education. We believe that all schools, colleges and universities deserve enterprise-class solutions without the enterprise overheads. It’s our goal to provide high performance LAN and WLAN solutions, especially to schools which provide such an essential service to the community,” commented Will Liu, Managing Director at TP-Link UK.
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